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Continuous flooding leaves Phoenix neighborhood on edge

Posted at 7:13 PM, Jul 14, 2018
and last updated 2018-07-16 21:27:23-04

Neighbors in one Valley neighborhood are looking for a fix to their continuous flooding problem.
 
The Foote Addition neighborhood near 24th Street and Thomas Road has been dealing with flooding over the last few years.
 
Norman Rockwell moved into his home along Cambridge Avenue in the 80’s. He said there was never a problem with flooding until just a few years ago.
 
“We had about 40 thousand dollars worth of damage in 2014 and again in 2016,” Rockwell said.
 
Ed Duber moved in a few years ago a few houses down the road. He says every monsoon the neighborhood worries about flooding and several go out and get sandbags for their homes.
 
“Every storm everybody freaks out,” Duber said. 
 
His neighbor across the street had her home flooded in 2016 when heavy storms brought a wave of water to the neighborhood. 
 
“We’ve had significant flooding in this area. Where we’ve talked to the city, we’ve talked to SRP, nobody wants to take responsibility,” said Duber.
 
“Calling everyone from SRP, the city,” said Rockwell.
 
The community has even held a community meeting inviting representatives from both parties to hear their concerns, which happened back in December.
 
So what does SRP and the City of Phoenix have to say?
 
SRP told ABC15 they are aware of the problems and have been out there, but they are only in charge of the canals. The rest is for the City of Phoenix to handle.
 
The City of Phoenix has not returned our calls but a letter to one of the residents from the Floodplain Manager back in January outlines their mission.
 
The letter states that a study needs to be done in the area to study flooding in the area, possible solutions from the study could be adding more drains to alleviate the flooding, and possibly using the canal as a means to help flow water away from the homes. That was nearly 6 months ago.

Residents say they haven’t seen the city take any action since that letter or heard if and when that study would be going through. 
 
“Someone needs to step up,” Duber said.

The City of Phoenix said they have over 800 areas with drainage issues so they have to prioritize given that they have limited money but they are working hard to resolve the issue. 

MAP: Monsoon 2018 sand and bag locations

Officials said the city is facing 1.7 billion dollars worth of drainage needs and over 2 billion countywide.  

The study they want to perform for the area would look at adding more drainage systems and basins, the problem is there is no money. Without the money, the study can’t move forward.  

The city is working with the Flood Control District, which does have some money they can use to help with the study, but at the moment there is no timetable on when that will actually happen. 

“Right now there is no funding for capital construction projects for that specific area,” said Floodplan Manager Ray Dovalina. “We’ve been trying to develop small projects and large projects.”

In the meantime, officials say they have opened up more drains, the maintain the ones they have now to make sure there is no debris blocking them and they work with SRP to control the flow of the canal so that it doesn’t get overwhelmed during monsoon.